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Petition Tag - university college london
1. Open Letter to Malcolm Grant: Say no to the 'New College of the Humanities' 
On Sunday 5 June, a private college calling itself the "New College of the Humanities" (NCHUM www.nchum.org) was launched in the UK press. This college promises "one to one tuition" in humanities subjects at the University of London in return for an annual fee of £18,000 a year. Unlike the publicly-funded not-for-profit University sector, this college is set up as a private enterprise paying shareholders dividends.
Simultaneously, Arts and Humanities departments in universities across the UK are in crisis. Government funding for teaching has been cut by 80% and it is doubtful that ordinary working-class UK students will be able to pay £8-9,000 to study subjects such as Philosophy, History, Art, Language and Literature. Universities which specialise in Humanities subjects, or whose intake is primarily working-class, face bankruptcy.
The NCHUM is thus part of the problem, not part of the solution. Should this business model be successful it will likely create a market drive towards similar experiments at the expense of the public sector, in exactly the same way as private wards and BUPA have impacted on the NHS. For this reason the proposal must be opposed.
Vice Chancellors across the University of London have so far been slow to distance themselves from this venture. This petition, open to staff, students and alumni of University College London (UCL) asks that current Provost, Malcolm Grant does just this.
2. Fair treatment for all workers at UCL
As things stand, a significant number of contract staff at University College London receive the national minimum wage, £5.80 per hour, which is simply not enough to survive in London. Other University of London colleges such as SOAS, LSE, Birkbeck and Queen Mary’s have already adopted the London Living Wage (LLW), while UCL lags behind.
Former UCL cleaner Juan Carlos Piedra Benitez was dismissed from his job at UCL by contracted cleaning company Office & General. Recordings exist between Mr Piedra and O&G managers which prove that Mr Piedra’s trade union activity, especially in campaigning for the LLW, played an active role in his dismissal. This is not only unfair, but illegal.
Mr Piedra’s case attests quite clearly to the part that the out-sourcing of jobs plays in ensuring staff receive no better than poverty wages. Further, recent events at SOAS have proven contracting companies’ willingness to collude with UK Borders Agency to set up aggressive immigration raids and deportation programmes against cleaners.
